Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 121. Sword or Spear?
At a seemingly random time in the morning, Laien and Yin opened their eyes and exchanged a glance. They could have easily made themselves train longer as the normal meditative-trance wasn’t nearly as taxing on their mental strength as the Combines Soul Realm sessions, but as they had already learned, surprisingly, it wasn’t all that efficient for them to hole up and meditate for extended periods of time. Perhaps there existed people whose personalities were suited to long, closed-off sessions even when they were but kids, but the two of them definitely weren’t like that.
“That being said,” Laien mused quietly. “It really was quite a fruitful night, in various meanings of this word,” he added in his thoughts and chuckled a little. He and Yin were both quite satisfied; they had just barely managed to form the fifth set of golden runes and afterwards, they had spent the rest of the time meditating on their own Profound Mysteries. In his case, it was the Shifting Currents Mystery, while in Yin’s the Lightning Dance mystery, both of which they had obtained from Patrick’s ancient tomes. Since their insights into those two mysteries were still relatively shallow, they were able to make a lot of progress in a short period of time, what naturally made them feel good.
“Are you guys about done too?” Laien asked after a moment, his gaze wandering towards Raphael and Mikaela, who were both sitting cross-legged on the large bed.
“Pretty much,” Raphael opened his eyes and answered with a smile. “We were only waiting for you to finish,” he added casually. The amount of time he would need to spend meditating upon his new insights before even reaching any kind of a bottleneck was likely to be counted in months, so extending one training session by a few hours wouldn’t make any difference to him at all.
“So we are going already?” Mikaela asked with a small yawn. He had spent the second half of the night training, but since he wasn’t all that used to it, he still ended up being somewhat sleepy.
“Yeah,” Laien said with a laugh, then added with his smile turning rather wry and playful. “Unless you guys are planning to enjoy some more time alone like the last night. We can wait, you know?”
The unexpected comment caught not only Raphael but even Mikaela seriously off-guard. The two of them immediately blushed as they recalled what they had done. Just thinking about all of it had suddenly become so much more embarrassing that neither of them was able to come up with any kind of a retaliation to Laien’s teasing, what naturally resulted in the two of them sitting there, embarrassed and turning red all the way up to their ears.
Seeing the flushed faces of Raphael and Mikaela and witnessing their cute reaction to his words, Laien chuckled and mentioned lightheartedly, “You two must have done some quite embarrassing things for you to react like that, huh? Well, I think we can sympathize, so I will spare you the teasing, at least for now.”
It took them a few seconds, given that they were already quite perturbed, but Raphael and Mikaela both revealed surprised looks when they caught upon the meaning behind Laien’s words.
“Really?” Mikaela quickly shook off the surprise and looked at Laien and Yin with curious eyes. “Do you guys do… you know, those things together too?” he asked daringly, but even as straightforward as he was, he was too embarrassed to actually name ‘those things’ with their proper names.
“Hmm.” Laien smiled playfully and with his cheeks blushing slightly, he gave Yin a cheeky look and asked, “What would you say, do we do them?”
Being asked something like that in front of Raphael and Mikaela, Yin couldn’t help but grow embarrassed. “Did you really need to bring it up in front of those two?” he grumbled silently, knowing that Laien was aware of his thoughts. However, he could tell that Laien was enjoying himself while looking at his reactions, so there was little to no possibility of dodging out of this question.
“What do you even want me to say?” Yin asked helplessly, feeling his face burning up strongly. This was almost as bad as when Reian, Arslan, and Johan caught them by the river.
“The truth?” Laien teased, thinking that it had been far too long since he had last seen Yin react in such an adorable way.
Yin grumbled silently and with a stubborn look on his face, he looked Laien in the eye. Laien really was enjoying teasing him a little too much.
“Come on, tell me?” Laien insisted with a playful smile. He scooted over even closer to Yin and looked at him from close-up, pleased to see the increasingly embarrassed expression on Yin’s face.
Backed into a corner and unwilling to go along with Laien’s demands, Yin grabbed Laien’s shirt and pulled him in for a kiss, which Laien gladly received and returned. After a few seconds, when the two of them separated, he looked at Laien once again and said in a hushed voice, “There’s no way I’m saying that aloud, you idiot.”
Laien chuckled, in his heart admitting that he might have been trying to take his teasing a bit too far. However, he did get Yin to do and say something so incredibly cute as a result, so it was certainly worth the hassle. “I guess that will need to settle for an answer,” he said with a laugh and glanced to the side, at Raphael and Mikaela, one of whom appeared to be ashamed while the other one seemed to be more amused and excited rather than embarrassed.
“So you do it too! Wow!” Needless to say, the amused and excited one was Mikaela. “When did you start doing it together? How often do you do it? How much do you do together?” he asked one question after another with a strong flush on his face, perhaps letting the excitement get to his head a bit too much.
“Time out, time out,” Laien raised his hands helplessly and exchanged a glance first with Yin, then with Raphael. “We can talk about it at some better opportunity, okay?” he suggested with a troubled laugh. He didn’t mind some teasing and fun, but even he would get embarrassed when asked questions like those, much less Yin and Raphael, who both appeared to be prone to acting shy in front of other people.
“Uhuh, fine,” Mikaela conceded after a second of thought. Him from yesterday would have drilled the subject, but now he could sympathize with how embarrassing this topic was, so he was able to restrain himself from going too wild. “If you tell us, I will tell you too, okay?” he mentioned, almost causing Raphael to choke on his own tongue. Was the concept of shyness something that didn’t exist in Mika’s dictionary?! He would die of shame if Mikaela told Laien and Yin what they were doing last night!
In this case, Yin’s thoughts were very similar to Raphael’s; he thought it was a bit too much for them to talk about such things… but in the end, the similarities in character between Mikaela and Laien came to the surface once again as Laien smiled in playful amusement.
“Mhm, okay. It seems pretty fun,” Laien declared with a wry smile, confirming Yin’s predictions and making Raphael feel increasingly helpless.
“Yay,” Mikaela chuckled happily and jumped off the bed. “Are we going to go and spar first or are we going to do something else?” he inquired, changing the subject swiftly after having gotten his own way.
“Sparring first,” Laien said with a laugh and got off the sofa, leaving the previous subject behind just as quickly as Mikaela did. “I did say I would help you see what weapon you are best suited to, after all,” he added, meeting Mikaela halfway to the door. Then, as if they planned it beforehand, the two of them turned around, one of them towards at Yin and the other one towards Raphael, asking them with a glance if they were going to come along or if they were going to keep sitting there.
“…” It was already hard to deal with one mischievous friend, but when two of them came together in a bigger group, the trouble was bound to multiply. Sharing this sentiment, Yin and Raphael exchanged an embarrassed look before getting up and joining Laien and Mikaela. Somehow, the two of them had chosen really troublesome partners for themselves… though they needed to admit that as embarrassed as they were, they didn’t dislike this part of Laien’s and Mikaela’s characters.
A few moments later, the four of them left the third floor and after Laien casually swept the building with his aura, they headed to the room Arslan was sleeping in.
“You coming with us or do you want to sleep more?” Laien called out after opening the door and sure enough, saw Arslan get up without a moment’s hesitation. “Did you sleep well?” he asked with a laugh when Arslan walked up to them while rubbing his eyes and with slightly messy morning hair.
“Yeah,” Arslan replied, slowly getting himself to become fully awake. “We finished after two hours or so. I already signed too since Jasmine and Sirius both agreed that ‘trying to renegotiate anything given conditions this good would be too shameless’, or something like that,” he explained, awake enough to keep his voice relatively quiet. Raphael and Mikaela already more or less knew what was going on, but he knew it wouldn’t be the best of ideas to spread the news around too carefreely.
“So far so good,” Laien said with a smile. “Now we just gotta wait for a reply from your father,” he mentioned lightheartedly, though he chose not to mention them leaving in five more days just yet. He would tell Raphael and Mikaela about it, but he didn’t want to do it right now and spoil the fun time they were having.
“We don’t really need to,” Arslan said with a cheeky smile, referring to his own decision to go through with the plan regardless of his father’s concerns for his safety.
“Aren’t you a precious one,” Laien said with a laugh and tousled Arslan’s hair, causing the five-year-old to blush a little and smile happily. “Let’s hope your father agrees though,” he added, thinking it would be much better if Mustafa went along with their plans willingly.
“Yeah, it would be nice,” Arslan agreed. He was determined not to run away from the problems in front of him, but it would be easier if he had his father’s wholehearted backing. “Mm, are we going somewhere?” he inquired after a second or two, sensing the atmosphere of anticipation surrounding his four friends.
“Yup.” Laien nodded slightly. “Probably to the same training grounds as yesterday,” he added thoughtfully. They could also get themselves a room in the fort, in Elder Samuel’s quarters, but it would be more convenient if they were outside. Then, at the very least, they wouldn’t need to worry about the potential damage they would cause to their surroundings.
“Well, let’s go,” he mentioned lightheartedly, seeing as Arslan wasn’t about to ask him anything else. Like that, the five of them descended the stairs once again and arrived at the first floor. However, before they left the building, they were approached by Luca, Daniel, and Lea in the corridor. There were also Johan and Albert, but the two of them remained at the doorstep of their room without joining the rest of them directly.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“What’s up?” Laien asked with a carefree, slightly wry smile. He was, after all, planning to go playing while leaving Luca and the others behind. No matter how thick his skin was, he did feel a bit embarrassed about what he was doing when seeing them face to face.
“Where are you going?” Luca asked, for some reason appearing to be either frustrated or angered, or maybe both at the same time.
“Outside,” Laien replied briefly, wondering what was up with Luca. It didn’t feel like this anger was directed at him, but it was clearly present in Luca’s voice.
“You weren’t planning to bring us along, were you?” Luca asked with a quiet, helpless chuckle. It was just like he had thought, huh? He just couldn’t compare to the likes of Raphael and Mikaela, be it in terms of status or talent. He also knew that he wasn’t all that fun to be around given his stubborn and hard-to-approach character, so he wasn’t all that surprised with Laien’s choice.
“Yeah,” Laien replied straightforwardly, not planning to make up any excuses for himself. And by the looks of it, given how Luca, Daniel, and Lea all smiled helplessly, this overly honest attitude of his wasn’t unwelcome. “We will be going to the training grounds anyway, so if you guys want, you can also come. Don’t expect much attention though, okay?” Laien added with a wry smile. He wouldn’t go as far as to tell Luca and the others not to come with them, but he also wasn’t planning to spend much time interacting with the three of them. He preferred to make it clear.in order to avoid any potential unpleasantries with them later on in case they felt ignored and didn’t know why.
Not really sure how to reply to that, Luca stood there with his mouth slightly open for a good few seconds. On the other hand, Daniel laughed in a carefree manner and said, “We don’t have anything better to do, so I think we’ll make you bear with our presence for the day.”
“Fine with me,” Laien replied with a laugh. “You guys want to come along too?” he asked, glancing in Johan and Albert’s direction.
“We do!” Albeit after gathering his courage for a second or two, Johan responded loudly, then blushed a little. He didn’t intend to reply in such a loud and overly excited manner, but he couldn’t help it given that he spent almost no time with Laien, Yin, and Arslan the day before.
As for Albert, he didn’t allow himself to be overwhelmed by the prestige of the younger boys in front of him and said with a calm laugh, “If you don’t mind, then we will do just that.”
“Kay,” Laien nodded contentedly. “Let’s finally get going,” he said with a smile and led the way out of the house, walking with Yin at the head of their ten-youths-strong group.
Alas, the moment they stepped out of the house, they were once again stopped, this time by Jugal, Richt and the two men whose names Laien didn’t remember.
“As much as it pains me,” Jugal began saying with a smirk on his face. “Those White Guards of yours said they are still going to be busy, so we are both stuck with each other,” he concluded, though contrary to his words, he didn’t appear to be all that unhappy. To him, as long as this day was half as interesting as the last one, he would be more than satisfied with fulfilling the duty of the kids’ guard.
“Great.” Laien shook his head resignedly. He liked it best to move around and play in small groups of at most five or six people, but he somehow ended up with thirteen companions. “I appreciate the thought, but don’t you guys have better things to do? Like I don’t know, submitting a report to Elder Samuel or something?” he asked randomly, not really expecting to see the amusing reaction his words triggered in Richt.
“That only comes after…” Richt started saying, but the amiable smile of his soon disappeared as he asked himself the question he had somehow managed to completely forget about. Right…! None of them reported yesterday’s events to Elder Samuel! This was outrageous! They failed to report something so important! They just needed to inform Elder Samuel of it as soon as possible, but they couldn’t afford to disobey the orders either… what in the world were they supposed to do?
“Hah,” Jugal chortled, enjoying the perturbed look on Richt’s face far more than anyone else here. “What a dilemma we have, huh? Ordered to keep a constant watch on those five and yet wishing to report something important. What are we going to do now, eh? What a peril, what a dilemma!” he mocked merrily, not in the least concerned about the situation at hand. Elder Samuel already was treating those kids with the utmost level of favor, so the news of Laien and Raphael’s strength wouldn’t change much. However, he was pretty sure that a disciplinarian like Richt would be unable to figure it out and would keep worrying over nothing, what he fully intended to allow to happen.
“How can you be so…?” Richt was about to start arguing with Jugal, though before he could do that, Laien interrupted him.
“Whatever,” Laien said dismissively and just like the first time they met, he passed by the four men and went his own way, gesturing the rest of the youths to follow him. Once again, he wasn’t interested enough to watch the two men squabble with each other. Rather than that, he wanted to get going with his own day and as it seemed, his friends were in a total agreement with him.
“…”
“Hah.” Jugal shook his head with a smile. “It really does make us seem like brats, doesn’t it? Especially the second time it happens,” he commented with a carefree laugh and followed the group of youths. He never cared about silly things like his ‘image’ and he only bickered with Richt because it was fun to argue with him and get on his nerves. Thus, he was able to shrug the whole thing off with ease. So what if he was behaving like a rowdy brat? He didn’t mind such a label at all.
“…” On the contrary, Richt felt like his head was about to split apart from the contradictory feelings he was having. He truly thought that being diligent and disciplined was the correct way to live, but was him reprimanding and arguing with Jugal all the time simply childish on his part? There was also the problem of reporting to Elder Samuel, the way to solve which he couldn’t decide upon.
“Um, captain,” one of Richt’s subordinates found it in himself to speak up. “How about we simply ask them to stop by Elder Samuel’s chambers in the afternoon? We will be going by the fort anyway and they might even want to eat at the canteen again,” he proposed, what in consequence allowed the frown on Richt’s face to lessen.
“That’s a good idea,” Richt admitted and took a deep breath, trying to calm down a little. “We will do just that and in the worst case, I will just send one of you to Elder Samuel,” he said decisively and started walking readily as to catch up to the youths who were getting further away.
Thankfully and luckily for the well-being of Laien’s mood, no one else appeared to stop them or join them on their way to the training grounds.
“Hrm,” Laien scratched the back of his head with a lighthearted look on his face. “We should probably do it the standard way. Get your sword out first and come,” he said to Mikaela and took out his white spear, eager to see whether Mikaela really was suited to a different kind of weapon.
“My sword?” Mikaela asked, though he both followed and took his sword out just like Laien requested.
“Of course,” Laien said with a smile. “I’ve got to see how you do with all weapons, not just with the spear. Well, I do say all weapons, but I mean the two standard ones; sword and spear. We might as well try dual swords too, but anything else is outside of my expertise,” he explained straightforwardly. He had reached a level high enough to be called a master of the spear himself and as rare as dual wielding was, he had a lot of experience fighting a genius in this field, so there would be no problem. As for using the standard sword, he had faced countless people using it and its basic variations, so he would be able to tell whether Mikaela was doing good with it or not.
“I can’t see myself using a greataxe or a halberd,” Mikaela said with a wry smile. He was naturally slim and although the basic body build didn’t mean all that much to marital masters, he didn’t find the exotic and unusual types of weapons to be likable. He could consider using twin swords, but apart from that, he was only interested in the sword and in the spear, and especially in the spear.
“Good,” Laien nodded, then assumed a battle-ready stance. “Come at me with all you’ve got. Feel free to assist yourself with magic, but keep the fight to the melee,” he instructed with a smile, looking forward to seeing what the extent of Mikaela’s abilities was. He already knew that in terms of cultivation, Mikaela was a genius on the level of the likes of Yin and himself. However, would his sense for battle measure up to his immense potential? Now that he asked himself this question, he couldn’t wait to see what the answer to it was.
“Kay,” Mikaela said merrily. He couldn’t quite control his Qi all that well since he was only a martial practitioner of the fifth rank and was yet to learn a Qi Manipulating Art, so normally, he would have just attacked in a purely physical way… however. “I totally wanted to give it a try since yesterday,” he thought to himself, his smile growing more playful.
The Aspects of Awareness, that Aspect of Love, the Principle of Energy… there were also a few unorganized insights he had into the Profound Mysteries, but he chose not to bother with them. “Just making water would be easy, so let’s try something else,” he mused and pulled onto his spiritual energy, merged it with his insights and engulfed his sword with it. Finally, he tried to transform it into both water and shards of ice and milky-white mist actually succeeded.
However, he soon realized that it would be pointless to continue like that. “I’m concentrating on maintaining it too much, I wouldn’t be able to fight properly,” he admitted before himself and restricted his magic to the pure water element. “Mm, that feels simple enough. Laien’s water was flowing constantly though… oh, just like that.” He smiled, seeing Laien release his water-element magic. Perhaps if they exchanged enough blows, then he would get a hand of some of the Profound Mysteries Laien told him about yesterday!
With such a positive mindset, he jumped forward and attacked Laien. He knew this was just a spar and that Laien wouldn’t go all-out, but he didn’t want to lose the initiative. After all, he knew how terrible it felt to be on the defensive against a spear-wielder from the times he sparred against Raphael. Thus, he attacked without fear, relying on his inborn senses to maneuver out of Laien’s counterattacks as he tried his best to put him on the defensive.
“His spirit isn’t lacking,” Laien thought with a smile as he retreated steadily, step by a step, all the while slowly guiding Mikaela’s attacks towards him. “He seems to also be slowly grasping how to use the Profound Mysteries I’m showing him. Mm, when he gets a little better, I will slowly add more and more insights I have into them,” he mused contentedly, however, after about a minute of exchanging blows with Mikaela, his expression started growing a bit concerned.
“That’s enough,” he said after another thirty or forty seconds. There were other benefits Mikaela could gain from continuing, but that could wait for later. For the time being, they were supposed to resolve his weapon-of-choice dilemma.
“How did I do?” Mikaela backed off by three steps and asked with a smile. He was only slightly short on breath and although he couldn’t explain it, fighting Laien was much more pleasant than fighting Raphael. Somehow, it wasn’t frustrating and he could see what to do next instead of feeling like he had no chance at all. it was a nice and fresh experience that was even better than when his teachers tried to ‘spar and guide him’, what only served to better his already high opinion of Laien.
“You fought well,” Laien praised truthfully. Mikaela’s skill with the sword was top-notch… and yet, it just wasn’t that. “You also seem to be quickly learning the Profound Mysteries as we exchange blows, but something is lacking. How should I say it…? Yeah, it’s as if your sword has no heart,” he explained in a vague way, though thanks to how similar his and Mikaela’s thought processes were, Mikaela quickly caught on to what he meant.
“I guess so,” Mikaela said with a shrug of his shoulders and looked at the sword in his hand. “I don’t really like using a sword. I mean, it’s not unpleasant, but it’s not enjoyable either,” he elaborated, guessing that this was the ‘no heart’ part that Laien was referring to. Just like yesterday, he could tell that his training was much more effective since he enjoyed it and was fully committed to it; and by the looks of it, Laien was thinking along the same lines.
“And you think you’d enjoy the spear?” Laien asked, wondering if a simple switch was all Mikaela needed. True, he had made a remark about Mikaela’s teachers being incompetent, but if he considered it calmly, they couldn’t be incompetent at everything; not when Elder Samuel gave his best to find skilled and suitable teachers for his youngest son.
“I think so?” Mikaela replied in a questioning tone. It had been quite some time since he last used a spear, but if he could fight with it like Laien did, then he would definitely enjoy it. If he closed his eyes, he could still easily recall the scenes of that duel between Laien and Raphael, and he could remember all of their movements with surprising clearness.
“Well, let’s give it a try then,” Laien agreed, seeing no other way than to take it slowly. Perhaps finding a motivation and a goal was all that Mikaela needed. “Do you have a good spear or do you need me to lend you one?” he inquired with a smile.
“I have one,” Mikaela said and took out a silvery-black spear, which enlarged itself by about ten centimeters after landing in his hands.
“Living Steel,” Laien laughed in his heart with a somewhat helpless look on his face. Could it be that Mikaela’s sword was also made with Living Steel? If so, then did he also have an identical spare one, just in case? Living Steel was almost unseen in the south, while here one boy had a spare weapon made with it…the wealth of the Ruishi Federation really wasn’t a joke, damn.